United Nations, June 11 (RHC)-- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged he was coerced into removing Saudi Arabia from a blacklist of forces responsible for killing children, after the kingdom threatened to cut off funding to the United Nations.

An annual U.N. report found nearly 2,000 children were killed or injured in Yemen last year, a sixfold increase over the previous year. Sixty percent of those casualties were blamed on the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition.

Ban Ki-moon described the decision to remove the Saudi-led coalition from the blacklist as "one of the most painful and difficult decisions I have had to make."

The UN secretary general said: "The report describes horrors no child should have to face.  At the same time, I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many U.N. programs. Children already at risk in Palestine, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and so many other places would fall further into despair.  It is unacceptable for member states to exert undue pressure."